


Let Me Get Close Enough

by stardropdream



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Episode Related, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Missing Scene, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:48:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9783134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: "I told you before," Victor says, calm and gentle, "I love katsudon."And now Yuuri can't stop thinking about it and about Victor and about himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You know that feeling when you write 16k words and yet it still feels rushed? Yeah, I didn't until writing this. It's been approximately 3000 years since I wrote something this long but hey, new fandoms and all that. This is a story that's 100% been done before but whatever who isn't in favor of nerds falling in love and having love confessions tbh. 
> 
> This takes place right after ep 3 and spans past ep 4. So enjoy!

His body still feels warm, even once he’s done his cool-down and the crowds clear out from the Onsen on Ice event, leaving Yuuri all alone on the ice. Yuuri doesn’t mind the extra moment alone, swirling around the edge of the rink a few more times – getting in a few laps in before he’ll need to clear it and let the ice smooth out again for the business day tomorrow. He still feels like he’s on fire. There’s something coiling up in his heart and he can’t think of anything else but this. It roils in his mind, consuming and encompassing. 

He thinks he’s alone. Except when he looks up after his final lap, he sees Victor lingering at the boards, leaning on his elbows and just watching him. Yuuri does his best not to stumble – feels a flush of warmth again as he turns directions and heads over towards him. 

Victor smiles, chin resting on his upturned palm, leaning forward slightly over the boards as Yuuri approaches and slides to a quiet stop in front of him. There’s a question in Yuuri’s eyes, he knows, but Victor offers no answer – only holds out a water bottle for Yuuri, who takes it gratefully and takes a long drink. His fingertips bump against Victor’s, and it’s a small and soothing touch, hardly anything at all, and yet it just centers Yuuri in on every line of his body – from his toes to the wisps of his hair breaking free from his gelled styling, curling over his forehead. 

“We’re training starting tomorrow,” Victor tells him, voice gentle and curling in the air – and Yuuri feels so warm, even though there’s the hushed whisper of foggy breath in the air. They are surrounded by ice, after all. “You shouldn’t overdo it tonight.” 

Yuuri nods, grateful for the swallow of water in his mouth that means he doesn’t have to form a worded response. His eyes are stuck on Victor, who’s smiling at him, either unaware or ignoring the way Yuuri’s eyes rest on his face – far bolder than he’s allowed himself, not since skating to _Eros_ for the first time in front of everyone – in front of Victor. It feels as if he’s been skating the routine forever, but it’s only been a few hours after Onsen on Ice. It’s only been a few hours before Yuuri truly realized what he was skating for. 

When they’re walking back home towards the inn, Victor says, “You changed some of the moves today.” 

Yuuri isn’t sure if he hears pride or disappointment in Victor’s voice, isn’t sure if Victor is about to scold him or praise him. He’s quiet for a long moment, collecting his words – slinging his bag over his shoulder, a duffled barrier between himself and Victor.

“Yes,” he finally settles on, and it is painfully inadequate. He dares to glance up at Victor – but Victor is not quite looking at him, instead looking out over the sweeping vista of Hasetsu as they cross the bridge. Once the silence stretches on too much, Yuuri asks, tentative, “… Did you like it?” 

“Mm,” Victor hums, which isn’t agreement or disagreement. His hands slip into his pockets, the wind ruffling his hair and the edges of his scarf. Yuuri still feels too warm, although he’s zipped up his jacket against the early spring chill. 

Yuuri’s heart pitters in his chest, speeding up and pressing to the base of his throat, seized by a sudden anxiety that he has upset Victor, or disappointed him. At the end of his skate, Victor had rattled off a list of things that need improvement, but this is a quieter kind of judgment that he senses, or fears that he senses – that he may have won Victor but has already disappointed him. They pass over the bridge, heading up the hill towards Yuuri’s family home. 

Even now it feels like a dream, that he should be walking side-by-side like this with Victor. At least he has stopped desperately stumbling in front of him every time Victor so much breathes in his direction – but it is still an uncertain thing, a tentative thing – this thought that it is not permanent, that it is still something like a dream. Like at any moment Yuuri will wake up and it won’t be true that Victor is here, is actually his _coach_ and not the idol he’s been chasing after and failing to reach. The silence fits strangely between them, the hanging edge of a conversation discontinued. 

They reach home and Yuuri calls out that they’re home, his mother answering from the back room. Victor smiles politely, a quick learner of languages he’d told Yuuri but not so quick that he could pick up a complicated language like Japanese so soon after arriving. These small little greetings Yuuri doesn’t bother to translate for Victor, since they are insignificant and he guesses Victor can understand it better in context. 

Victor smiles at him one last time as he toes off his shoes, and it’s strange still to be on the receiving end of such a look – something gentle and serene in Victor’s expression. Yuuri never knows how to respond to it. 

His body feels like it’s responding and Yuuri has never been good at listening to his body. It’s a foreign language to him entirely. He ducks his head when Victor smiles at him, unable to respond save for the blush of his cheeks, the slow twisting in his gut that he refuses to pay attention to. He doesn’t know where the confidence has gone, those brief moments of strengthen he showed on the ice – looking out at Victor and knowing he was skating to have him, to keep him, to _win_ him. 

“Um,” he says quietly and then realizes he has nothing to say. He sucks in a deep breath, hates when he’s like this – wishes he could look Victor in the eye, wishes he could have that same kind of comfort with Victor that he witnessed in Yuri. 

Victor is right there, right there beside him – and yet he feels miles away. Still, it does not feel to Yuuri that he has any right to reach out towards him. And yet he wants, so desperately. He remembers that feeling, just before skating – that fear that Victor will leave, that fear that Victor will look away from him.

He just doesn’t know how to translate this all. 

“Yes?” Victor prompts after the silence stretches on. In Yuuri’s peripheral vision, he sees Victor shift closer, swaying into Yuuri’s space – and pausing before getting too close again. Still Yuuri can think of nothing to say and Victor says, softer still, “Yes, Yuuri?” 

“I’ll… be sure to clean your costume, before I return it,” Yuuri mutters, thinks of the black and mesh costume folded up in his duffle bag.

Victor is quiet for a moment, and then he chuckles. “Ah,” he says, a soft exhale – perhaps disappointed, Yuuri isn’t sure. He doesn’t want to think about it. “No,” Victor finally decides. “You should keep it. It suits you and the routine.” 

“Right,” Yuuri says, weakly, secretly glad. Although it is mortifying to consider that he fits into this costume that Victor wore as a teenager. But then, Yuuri is about the same height Victor was at that age, perhaps the same build. He isn’t sure. He finds himself blushing more. 

“I liked seeing you in it,” Victor says, voice sounding further away now. But that might because of the ringing in Yuuri’s ears. Victor hums out and Yuuri stares down at their feet, watches as Victor takes a step back. “You should clean up,” he tells Yuuri, forcefully cheerful now, “Did you want to go to the hot springs together?” 

Yuuri’s voice sounds hollow and far away when he says, “Sure.” 

 

-

 

After Yuuri cleans off and packs away his equipment, uses a quick wash to get rid of the sweat and grime from the day, he joins Victor in the hot springs. He’s quiet as he approaches, but Victor cracks his eye open all the same as Yuuri slips into the water, settling on the ledge in the bath opposite Victor. 

Victor cants him a lazy smile and then lounges, draping one arm along the edge of the spring, looking perfectly at peace and relaxed. He looks like he belongs there, which is something Yuuri never thought he’d think about a foreigner in his family’s hot springs, much less someone like _Victor._ Not that he’d ever, in his wildest dreams, imagined that Victor would ever find his way to Hasetsu. But then, Victor always did delight in being unpredictable and surprising. 

Yuuri watches Victor and thinks about the skate today. His actual skating feels like a blur. What he remembers is sliding out onto the ice and taking place at the center, turning his head and looking at Victor waiting for him there – dancing on the ice for the sake of persuasion, to make him stay, to make him never take his eyes off him. There was a thrill and power in that thought, even if it makes Yuuri’s cheeks warm just thinking about it – thinking about how focused in on Victor he’d been, in that moment. 

He thinks about Victor noting the changes, on the walk home. The inscrutable expression he’d worn as he looked out across the bridge, and not at Yuuri. 

He thinks about the feeling after coming off the ice, his body warm, his blood on fire. Thinking, for only half a moment, that he could do anything and the world would fall to its knees for him. 

Such a feeling of power is disconcerting for Yuuri – but addictive. He doesn’t know what to do. The dredges of those feelings still lurk at the back of his mind, his blood quiet but just waiting for that chance to sing again.

He looks at Victor. 

“I can change it back,” Yuuri says, suddenly.

“Hmmm?” Victor hums, eyes closed and only half-listening, it seems. 

Yuuri fiddles, but has nothing to fiddle with and so his fingers pick at bits of skin around his nails. “Your routine.” 

“ _Your_ routine,” Victor corrects, sliding the folded towel off his forehead and tipping his head forward to look at Yuuri from across the spring. His expression is firm, but gentle at the edges. Yuuri has no idea how he manages to be both at once. 

It’s strange how disconcerting Victor’s gaze can be. Yuuri has spent the grand majority of his life knowing the exact shape and curve of Victor’s face, the exact shade of his eyes – but it is one thing to see him on television or in posters and another thing entirely to see him in person, naked and only a few breaths away from him. It’s at once familiar and unfamiliar. And now, Victor is looking at him steadily. 

“My routine,” Yuuri corrects, although does not feel in full possession of it– it still feels very much like Victor’s, not his own, even down to the outfit he wore today. It still feels very much like he is moving in ways meant for Victor, not himself. His body is sore from skating the routine, a bone-tired and pleasant kind of soreness. The soreness in his heart, however, feels different – that twist of longing he’s always felt in regards to Victor and his skating underscored by that heat that’s pooling somewhere in Yuuri’s chest. 

“Why do you want to change it back?” Victor asks, and he sounds patient enough and yet Yuuri still feels uncertain. Victor shifts, rolling one shoulder, sitting up a little straighter in the water so more of his chest is exposed above the water. Yuuri absently watches one droplet of water slide off the cliff of his collarbone and fall down his chest and into the water. 

With some effort, Yuuri forces his eyes back up to meet Victor’s calm gaze. Yuuri swallows down, grateful the warmth from the water can be used as an excuse for his pink cheeks. This far away, it’s hard to make out Victor’s expression without his glasses on.

“If you didn’t like it, I should change it,” Yuuri says, and does not mean it the way it sounds. He adds, correcting himself – leaning away, “Because you’re my coach now, I mean.”

Victor tilts his head with another low hum. “Yuuri,” he tells him, and Yuuri doesn’t know how to react, ever, to the way his name sounds in Victor’s mouth. He shivers, despite the heat of the water. Feels that stirring in his gut again. Victor says, his voice low and warm and promising, “I liked it.” 

“Oh,” Yuuri gasps out, the flood of relief pressing against his throat.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, of course,” Victor hums out, fiddling with a piece of his hair, brushing his fingers through his hair and pushing it back from his forehead for a moment as he hums up at the night sky, flooded with light from Hasetsu’s buildings and streets, only a few stars visible. 

“Of course,” Yuuri parrots, voice faint. 

“The way you moved today…” Victor begins and then trails off, looking up at the sky still, his fingers curling tight into his hair and tugging once at his temple before he releases his hair and lets his hand fall back into the water. His eyes seem far away now, lost to a thought he isn’t about to share with Yuuri. 

It’s just as well. Yuuri isn’t sure if he could physically handle Victor finishing that thought. 

Victor licks his lips once and then tilts his head back down, smiling at Yuuri, gentle enough again. Yuuri feels himself flush and is, yet again, grateful for the heat of the bath to mask his embarrassment. Victor’s cheeks are warm from the bath, too, so all the more reason that Yuuri feels less exposed. 

“You don’t think it was all… too much? What I did?” Yuuri asks, even though deep down he thinks he knows the answer. “With katsudon?”

Victor’s smile quirks up at the edge, his expression darkening with – desire, yes, Yuuri thinks distantly, it might be desire – before softening again, drawing back from Yuuri before he can fret. 

“I told you,” Victor tells him again, slow and calm. “I love katsudon.” 

There’s that long, pitching weight to the phrase again and Yuuri feels the heat growing up the back of his neck again. He meets Victor’s gaze and feels bold for it. Victor meets his gaze – waiting. Yuuri holds it – feels that same stirring of power as before, on the ice. 

“I promise to work hard,” Yuuri tells him, because it seems the appropriate thing to say to someone who was once his idol – still is his idol, really – but is now also his coach. “I won’t let you down!” 

He swallows thickly when Victor’s expression dimples into a wide smile, his eyes bright. 

 

-

 

Once the moon rises higher up into the sky, the air around them chilling with the cool night temperatures, Yuuri and Victor pull themselves from the hot spring and head off towards the upper floor and to sleep. Yuuri trails behind Victor, watching the way he towels his hair dry, little droplets falling from his hair and sliding down the back of his neck, dampening the collar of his robe. Yuuri stares and stares and knows he’s staring. 

“Well,” Victor hums out as he stops at the sliding door to his guest room. He turns towards Yuuri, and Yuuri makes sure he snaps his gaze up to look at Victor’s face, rather than his neck. “You should get some rest, Yuuri. You’ll have a big day tomorrow.” 

Yuuri nods a little and continues to stare. 

He thinks again of his skate on the ice, looking back towards Victor – who met his eyes, dark and promising. He thinks of that moment in the springs, Victor’s smile soft and waiting. Yuuri feels the way his stomach twists up in his gut. 

He could move forward, he thinks. He could say something. 

He must not be subtle at all, because Victor waits a moment and then asks, prompting and gentle, “Did you have something you wished to say, Yuuri?”

Yuuri is quiet and then, like a coward, he says, “No. Nothing. Goodnight, Victor.”

He turns before he can read the change in Victor’s expression, walks down the hall and doesn’t flinch at Victor’s quiet _Good night_ that follows after Yuuri. He closes his door behind him, alone in his room now. 

He doesn’t switch on his light right away, just leaning back against his door – his heart pounding, his cheeks flushed. He doesn’t know the reason why. It was only a passing thought, it was only—

The way Victor looked at him today—

Yuuri closes his eyes and breathes out, slow and steady. He switches on the light, his eyes falling on his new costume stretched out on his bed, crystals sparkling, mesh over the arm, the zipper on the side undone when he’d stepped out of it earlier after Onsen on Ice, and now waiting for him to step into it again here. 

He looks at it for a long moment, leaning against his door. He breathes in and then breathes out again. He stares at the costume. 

Victor’s eyes on him. His slow, steady smile. The touch of his hands on Yuuri’s arms. The heat pooling in Yuuri’s gut. 

_I’m the most beautiful woman in town,_ he thinks to himself and for half a second feels silly for the thought, and then the next moment later is swaying forward, running his hand along the arm of the costume, black and shining. 

He thinks of Victor in the other room. Thinks of the way Victor let him hug him before. Thinks of the way Victor looked at him, at the end of his skate, at the other end of the hot spring, outside his door just now. The way, it seems, Victor has always been looking at him. 

Yuuri sucks in a sharp breath and slams his door open before he can think better of it, stalks down the hallway and throws open Victor’s door with a strained, “ _Victor!_ ” 

He doesn’t know if Victor startles, but he does turn towards Yuuri with wide eyes, his robe slipping down off one shoulder, a towel still in his hair. 

“Yuuri?” he asks as Yuuri slams the door shut behind him and stalks forward. Victor blinks once as Yuuri moves to reach for him. Victor manages a surprised, “Yuuri, what—”

And just like that, the bravado leaves him and Yuuri stumbles a step, coming to an abrupt halt in front of Victor – before he can push him down onto the bed, or against the wall, or to drag him down against him. He ducks his head, flushing, his ears turning pink.

What is he thinking? Maybe he can brush this off as some craved need to thank Victor for everything he’s done up until this moment. Maybe he can just pretend that he wasn’t about to do anything drastic. Maybe—

“Yuuri?” Victor asks, quiet, his hand reaching out to touch Yuuri’s arm. 

Yuuri doesn’t flinch back, although the urge is there. He wants to look up at Victor, but he finds that he can’t. He stares down at their feet – both of them bare, Victor’s toes curling and uncurling against the tatami mat – still not used to the texture, Yuuri thinks. It almost makes Yuuri smile, almost makes Yuuri relax to see such a nervous, human gesture coming from someone like Victor, who up until he first showed up to be his coach had been someone ephemeral and distant. Still feels a little distant now, but closer. Maybe Yuuri is getting one step closer. Maybe—

Yuuri breathes in. Then manages to look up at Victor – who is still, waiting for Yuuri to move closer. Yuuri breathes out slow, looks at him, at the way his hair, damp, clings to the side of his face, the way his eyes glow a little in the moonlight – unreadable but trained only on Yuuri. Not looking away. 

Victor looks at him. And so Yuuri breathes out, slow, and lifts his hand. He touches at Victor’s neck, fingers catching at droplets of water waiting to slide down his neck and pool in the hollows of his collarbones. 

This close, Yuuri’s strangely aware of how much Victor _isn’t_ breathing, and it’s a strange realization. This close, Yuuri can see that Victor’s calm isn’t really calm at all – but rather an expectation, a hope. It shines in his eyes, unbearably blue. 

At least, that’s what Yuuri hopes it is. His own heart is beating so fast he’s sure it must be noticeable. He spends far too much energy making sure that his hand doesn’t shake as his thumb traces the line of Victor’s neck. 

And then, embarrassed, drops his hand away.

Victor lurches forward and grabs Yuuri’s hand – gentle enough that Yuuri can wrench his hand back. He doesn’t. And so Victor breathes out, and lifts Yuuri’s hand so that it rests against his neck again. Yuuri swallows. He can almost press his fingers to Victor’s pulse point, can almost feel his heartbeat. Victor still isn’t breathing. Waiting.

When Yuuri dares to look up at Victor, Victor’s eyes are dark in the dim light, darkened with what Yuuri both hopes and fears is desire. Desire – it must be desire. He hopes that Victor can see Yuuri’s desire in his face, too. Begs, silently, for Victor to see what Yuuri still can’t say. 

“Yuuri,” Victor says quietly, in that way that he says his name and steals all of Yuuri’s breath in one moment. Soft, reverential, longing. Yuuri never knew his name could sound like that. Yuuri never knew Victor could say his name like that. 

He’d intended something different from this, bursting into Victor’s room. He didn’t expect it to slow so suddenly, to move forward so slow and awkwardly. He feels self-conscious, standing there with his hand on Victor’s neck. 

Yuuri closes his eyes. Breathes out once. He’s the most beautiful woman in town. He’s seducing the playboy. He—

He shifts his hand up into Victor’s hair, curls the same way he saw Victor do it in the hot spring, and then tugs a little.

“Kiss me,” he tells him, with more ferocity and strength than he really feels. He imagines what he might look like on the ice – the sway of his hips, the curve of his smile – and he hopes he can at least mimic a fraction of that now, looking up at Victor. 

Victor scrambles forward, lurching on his feet with his curling and uncurling toes, and ducks forward to kiss Yuuri with such enthusiasm that Yuuri is momentarily scared they’re going to end up sprawled on the floor. 

But instead, Victor cups Yuuri’s cheeks and leans in to kiss him with an ardent, pained, _Yuuri_ and then he’s—

Then he’s kissing Yuuri and Yuuri doesn’t know what to do with his mouth, with his hands. He sucks in a sharp, surprised breath – and wonders what he would do if he were on the ice, if he were the katsudon he’s been practicing to be. 

He tightens his hold in Victor’s hair, his other hand coming up to rest against Victor’s bare shoulder, fingers brushing along his neck. Victor makes a keening sound into the kiss, which just makes Yuuri feel embarrassed – but not enough to pull away. Despite his command, he lets Victor set the pace, lets Victor kiss him, brush his thumbs over his cheeks. Kisses him slow and steady but _desperately_ , like it is physically painful for Victor to not be kissing him now that he can kiss him. 

What a strange thought – that Victor should want to kiss him, too. That Victor should react so physically to kissing Yuuri. As if Yuuri were anywhere near on his level. 

When Victor breaks the kiss, he stares at Yuuri with no small amount of wonder. Yuuri keeps his eyes shut for longer than strictly necessary, hoping that Victor would just keep kissing him so he wouldn’t have to think, or speak, or let his mind and all its troubled thoughts creep up on him. 

“I’ve—” Victor whispers out when Yuuri does open his eyes, his voice tight and strained, but relieved, “I’ve wanted to do that since – _forever._ ”

Yuuri almost laughs – disbelief and a warm flood of affection. Forever, he thinks, as if they have known each other long at all. But it’s settling to see Victor be melodramatic, even in this. Somehow, it puts him at ease. 

Shyly, though, he drops his hand from Victor’s hair. Victor makes a soft sound, and his hand chases after Yuuri, touching first his hip and then his back, then the back of his neck. Yuuri lets him, not swaying away from the touch. Strange, how easily he allows Victor’s touch. How desperately he longs for it, now, in this moment. 

Yuuri licks his lips, flushes when he sees the way Victor’s eyes zero in on that one movement. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I know I’m not very good at this.”

He hasn’t said it in words yet, although he’s sure that Victor has suspected now – how little experience he has. How very, very, very little experience he has with any of this. There was never any time. He thinks he must be awkward, standing there, unsure what to do with his hands, unsure how strongly to react and respond to each press of Victor’s lips. 

Victor’s fingertips touch the nape of Yuuri’s hair and Yuuri shivers, despite himself. 

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers, with feeling, and ducks his head down to kiss Yuuri again. He moves slowly enough that Yuuri could back away if he wanted – but he doesn’t want to. His hand fists in the fabric of Victor’s robe, desperate for something to hold on to. And he kisses him back. 

He’s stuck in his head, painfully aware of how he’s standing, where his hands are, how much or how little tongue he should use in kissing. It’s ridiculous, he thinks, that even in this he can’t just focus on the here and now, instead painfully aware of how stiffly he stands against Victor. 

Victor breaks the kiss again, but lingers close – close enough that their noses brush, that their mouths are right there. Yuuri looks into Victor’s eyes, and feels overwhelmed with how close he is. Victor has been this close before, of course, but never after having just kissed him. Never without Yuuri having to jerk back and away from him. He forces himself to stay now. 

“Is this okay?” Victor asks him, and there’s the touch of a frown to his lips. 

Yuuri’s hesitation must be clear. Mortified, he’s quick to reassure. “Mm,” he answers, voice hushed and breathless. “Victor, I. Just, I’ve never…” 

“It’s alright,” Victor tells him, thumb smoothing over Yuuri’s bottom lip. Presses it down, much like he had on the ice a few days ago. His eyes are half-lidded, soft and blown wide with desire. Somehow gentler than before, seeking to reassure but still confident. Yuuri wonders what he looks like to Victor, in turn. 

“I know,” Yuuri answers, even if he doesn’t know. But Yuuri wouldn’t have come here if he’d doubted too strongly. He’s shaking a little, he realizes, and tightens his hold on Victor’s robe to steady himself. 

Somehow, Victor wants him. Somehow, Victor is here. 

This time, Yuuri’s the one to lean in to kiss him. He angles forward, kisses him slow and unhurried. Victor breathes out a pleased sigh, wrapping one arm around Yuuri’s waist and drawing him in closer. Yuuri doesn’t trip over his own feet, but he sways forward, pressing chest to chest against Victor. Kisses him slow and full of longing – every pent up feeling he’s felt the last few days overflowing from him. 

Wanting, so desperately, to be desirable. To be _Eros_ like he’s meant to be – to seduce Victor like this, again and again. To keep him here. To make him stay. To make him look only at Yuuri. 

When Victor moves back, slowly, Yuuri follows him. When Victor falls back to spread out over his bed, Yuuri climbs after him. He tries to stop thinking. He tries to stop doubting. 

Victor’s hands curl in Yuuri’s hair, drag him in closer. They part once when Yuuri’s glasses dig into Victor’s cheek, and laughing nervously, Yuuri removes them and sets them aside. His body is on fire. His body is warm and flushed, his hands are fisted in Victor’s clothes – barely any clothes between them now – and Yuuri keeps telling himself, again and again – he is desire. He is desired. 

He ducks his head and kisses Victor hard. Victor makes a soft sound, grips Yuuri by his hair, and kisses him back. 

He never thought he’d do this – never thought he’d find his fingers splaying out over Victor’s chest where the robe has fallen open. Never thought he’d move from kissing Victor to pressing down against Victor to Victor mouthing at his throat, hands on his hips. Victor makes a sound of protest at one point, like he’s going to draw back, like he’s going to slow down, like he’s going to tell Yuuri to stop or to wait or ask him something absurd like _are you sure?_ or _is this okay?_

And so Yuuri grabs Victor’s hands and pins them down, and kisses him with gusto. He knows it’s sloppy and ill-practiced, but stops himself from imaging Victor hating this, or laughing at his lack of finesse. He is a katsudon, he is the most beautiful woman in town – he is something desired, something beautiful on the ice that Victor can’t look away from. When he draws away from the kiss, Victor is definitely not laughing at him – flush faced, mouth parted and kiss-swollen, eyes trained only on Yuuri. 

It is sloppy and uncertain – if Yuuri felt unsure about kissing Victor, he feels even less sure dragging his hands down Victor’s chest. Victor tries to ask him if it’s alright, that maybe they should slow down – and Yuuri only kisses him stubbornly until Victor stops suggesting it and only touches Yuuri. 

With more courage than Yuuri really feels, he sits back and yanks his shirt off over his head, pressing down against Victor, who is sprawled out on his back and staring up at Yuuri with wide, craving eyes. 

Yuuri’s hands shake a little as he drops the shirt down on the side of the bed. Victor continues to stare at him and Yuuri wilts, ready to slink away, ready to hide his face. 

Victor’s hands rest on Yuuri’s stomach, then slide up over his chest. Yuuri bites his lip, flushed, and leans against his touch. 

“You’re beautiful,” Victor tells him and Yuuri has to laugh, thinking he’s joking. But this just makes Victor frown. 

“Sorry,” Yuuri murmurs, flushed. “I’m nervous.” 

Victor nods – doesn’t tell Yuuri’s it’s okay, at least, which Yuuri appreciates. 

“Me too,” Victor tells him and Yuuri laughs again, softer – grateful that Victor would lie on his behalf.

Yuuri drops his hands down, fiddles with the collar of Victor’s robe and then leans back.

“Take that off,” he tells him – again, more daring than he really feels. 

Victor scrambles out from under him, eager to obey, shrugs out of the robe. His hands hook in the band of his entirely too tight underwear and he looks up at Yuuri, hesitating only for his sake. 

Yuuri’s breath stills inside of him. The underwear is that ridiculously expensive kind, expensive but thin, and when Yuuri lets his eyes linger, he can see how much this has affected Victor. He’s hard – he can actually see the outline of his cock through the fabric. Yuuri swallows. 

He must hesitate long enough because Victor moves his hands and reaches for Yuuri instead – drawing him down to him and kissing him long and slow.

“We can do whatever you want,” he tells him, and Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, suddenly seized with the sort of pressure that such an allowance gives him. It is meant as a mercy but it only makes Yuuri feel overwhelmed, his body shaking a little in the circle of Victor’s arms – too many things at once that he could do, that he wants to do, nervous suddenly that he will pick the wrong thing, that Victor will dislike something, will be bored with his choices. It’s too much pressure. 

He tilts his head up and kisses Victor, if only so he doesn’t have to speak. He touches Victor’s cheeks, his hair, his shoulders, slides his fingernails down his back, feeling the warm, perfect expanse of his skin. 

“I want it to be good for you,” Victor tells him when they pause in the kissing, and it’s an unbearably sweet confession that makes Yuuri feel warm all over, overfull and overwhelmed with affection. 

He touches Victor’s cheek, brushes his thumb over his mouth. Victor’s smile quirks up, and he kisses his thumb. Up close like this, really looking at him, Yuuri thinks Victor looks nervous. His hands can’t settle, touching at Yuuri’s skin and then hovering up, unsure where to touch, unsure where to let his hands rest.

Yuuri takes pity on him and grasps his hands, guides them to where Victor should touch him, lets Victor splay his fingers along the span of Yuuri’s back. Victor traces absent shapes and designs on Yuuri’s back. It’s far more reassuring than Yuuri thinks it should be. 

“Victor,” he manages to say, and it isn’t nearly adequate enough to express everything swirling inside of him – the way he’s thought of this only a few times in his life and never with any seriousness, how he’d skated for him today and only him, that Victor is the beautiful one, that Yuuri doesn’t deserve him, that he’s nervous and scared but wants this and has wanted it, that he wants it to be good for Victor, too, that he wants it to be worth it and—

Victor smiles at him, and leans into the touch of Yuuri’s hand, cheek cushioning against Yuuri’s palm, squishing up against the corner of his eye. It’s stupidly endearing and it makes Yuuri’s heart hurt, for a moment, fading in through the haze of his desire and the swell of his anxiety. 

“Yuuri,” Victor answers, with reverence – and he wonders if what he hears in Victor’s voice is what Yuuri sounds like when he speaks to him. He both hopes and fears it’s so. 

He’s the most beautiful woman in town, he reminds himself. And Victor wants him. 

He looks at Victor again and hears the way Victor’s breath sucks in when their eyes lock. Yuuri’s hands reach out, hook into Victor’s underwear, and tug down. He doesn’t dare look down, only looks at Victor’s face – which is somehow both worse and better. Victor flushes, glances down, and leans forward, resting his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. Victor squirms a little, shifting his hips and moving his legs to help wriggle out of his underwear. Yuuri still doesn’t look, even as he drops the entirely too expensive underwear to land on top of Yuuri’s ratty old shirt he usually sleeps in. 

He blinks, slowly, and breathes in, slower still. Steadies himself. Reminds himself, again, that somehow Victor wants him. 

“Now me,” he tells him and Victor is quick to obey, hands scrambling over Yuuri’s naked chest and down, tugging at the draw strings of his old sweatpants. “And,” he whispers, “Don’t… Don’t look yet.”

Victor looks back up at him, locking eyes with him obediently as he hooks his fingers into Yuuri’s sweatpants and boxer briefs, tugging both down over his hips. Yuuri quakes a little and pretends it’s the chill in the night air and not something else, mimicking Victor’s ridiculous hip shimmies to get out of his clothes without having to draw away from Victor. 

Victor’s hands smooth down Yuuri’s thighs, but he obeys his request – staring at Yuuri’s face and not once looking down. When Yuuri glances down at himself, flushed, he catches sight of Victor’s cock out of the corner of his eye – hard and curving slightly. Yuuri flushes more. 

He looks back up at Victor to find Victor smiling at him. He half expects a smirk, but instead Victor’s smile is unbearably fond. 

“Is it okay?” he asks and Yuuri doubts he’s asking out of any self-consciousness to his assets or what he looks like naked – Victor has had little trouble flaunting himself like that. It’s different in this context, though – having Victor this close, this naked, his pink in the cheeks and affected, in the dark of his room. The two of them here, together. 

Yuuri bites his lip and glances down again, really lets himself stare. He lets his eyes travel down Victor’s chest, his stomach, the swell of his cock and the flex of his thighs as he kneels in front of Yuuri. 

Eventually, though, Victor starts to squirm. “Yuuuuuuuri,” he whines, and it’s a thoroughly ridiculous sound in this situation, “Tell me what you’re thinking…” 

Yuuri jerks his head up to meet Victor’s gaze again, realizing that he’s been staring silently for too long. Victor is even more flushed than before, and his smile is a touch nervous – waiting, still waiting for Yuuri. 

“Can I—” Yuuri starts, and then stops. Sits up a bit straighter, chest swelling into the role he’s forcing himself into. “I’m going to touch you now.” 

Victor’s breath hitches and then his smile widens. He says, “Please do.” 

Yuuri hesitates, though, for half a second. He glances at Victor and says, “You’re not allowed to look until I say so.” 

“Yuuri’s such a tease,” Victor whines but also doesn’t sound too upset by it. He shifts closer towards him. 

Yuuri swallows down and then, slowly, reaches his hand out to touch Victor. His touch is tentative at first but Victor still sucks in a sharp breath. Yuuri glances up at him but Victor’s gaze is on the ceiling, doing as Yuuri asked. He looks absurd, Yuuri thinks, and he hasn’t even touched him yet. And even more absurd, Yuuri hates that he isn’t looking at him. 

He curls his hand around Victor’s cock. This, at least, he knows how to do, even if the angle is different and the size and shape and feel is completely different, and it’s _Victor_ that he’s touching like this, not himself. He bites his lip harder, scoots closer towards him, and presses up to him. He rests his cheek on Victor’s shoulder, glancing down, watching the slide of his hand over Victor’s cock. Like this, he feels bolder, especially once Victor curls his arm around Yuuri, slides his hand up into his hair to keep him close. 

Yuuri just watches the shape and fill of Victor’s cock – the way it fits in his hand, the soft touch of it, the firm grip around it, twisting his hand around his cockhead. Victor makes soft noises he’s never heard before – little moans, short gasps to accompany the jerkiness of his hips rocking forward. 

“Yuuri,” Victor says, quietly, like it’s the only word he knows how to say. Yuuri likes that thought. 

“You can look,” Yuuri tells him, face bright red. “You can touch me.” 

Victor snaps his head down, but Yuuri buries his face in Victor’s neck, not looking at him as he strokes him off, body shaking little with the weight of Victor’s eyes on him, sweeping over him. He knows that his body must be lacking, still soft in places after his fluctuating weight gain and subsequent weight loss. Knows that he is not nearly as beautiful as Victor, not nearly as defined or muscled or beautiful in the moonlight. 

All the same, Victor reaches out his hand and curls around Yuuri’s cock and Yuuri _sobs_ at the feeling, jerks forward and nearly sends them both toppling down onto the bed. Victor braces himself before he’s unceremoniously shoved down. Yuuri can hear Victor’s breath in his ear, can hear the way he whispers his name when he strokes down Yuuri’s cock, feels him for the first time. 

As far as sex goes, Yuuri privately thinks that Victor must be disappointed. For Yuuri, this is the first time, and he’s overwhelmed with it and yet wants more. Mutual handjobs is not how he pictured his first time but he doesn’t know how to articulate what he wants, what he needs – but this is nice all the same. He presses a clumsy kiss to Victor’s neck, then moans out loud when Victor squeezes his hand gently around his cock. A moment later, he mimics him – squeezing around Victor’s cock and stroking down, squeezing at the base. Victor’s startled, pleased cry is well worth the dare. 

“You’re beautiful,” Victor whispers in his ear and Yuuri wants to protest, but doesn’t have the words – his body shuddering a little when Victor’s hand twists, thumb pressing at the slit, then sweeping down, cupping his balls then dragging his thumb along the vein at the underside. It’s overwhelming for his senses, not for the touch, necessarily, but because it is Victor touching him. 

He must make a sound of protest because Victor’s breathless laugh coils around Yuuri’s brain, nestles there and refuses to leave.

Victor tells him, “Watching you on the ice like that today… Holding you like this…”

He completes neither thought, but Yuuri nods his head against his neck, kisses his shoulder because he doesn’t know what to say or what to do. He stills his hand when Victor starts thrusting up into his closed first. 

“Yuuri,” Victor tells him, “Let me…”

Yuuri immediately stills and lets Victor manhandle him, lets Victor fall onto his back and pull Yuuri on top of him. Like this, at least, Victor can’t really look at his body, which is just as well for Yuuri – but Victor’s expression is soft and yearning as he looks up at him, shifts Yuuri around by his hips until they are slotting together, Yuuri’s cock sliding along the hollow of Victor’s hip. 

“Look at you,” Victor says, wonderment in his voice – and Yuuri most certainly does not want to look at himself, so instead he just shakes his head and inches forward, kissing Victor. Victor sighs out happily and kisses him back.

When Victor’s hand falls between them, curls around Yuuri’s cock and guides him forward so he slides up against Victor, it’s all Yuuri can do to keep from crying out ridiculously loud. For the most part he keeps quiet, only moaning when he can’t hold it back in, snapping his hips forward to follow the path of Victor’s hand as he fists around both their cocks, stroking them both off.

Yuuri’s body shakes all over and it’s shocking to him when Victor comes first with a low cry. Yuuri watches him as Victor tilts his head to the side, eyelashes fluttering. It’s somehow reassuring, Yuuri thinks, that Victor doesn’t look attractive when he comes. He likes watching him all the same, delights in watching the way his face twists up, his mouth falls open with a gasp. There’s something open and vulnerable about the ugliness on a face that’s been primed for beauty since a young age. 

Yuuri watches Victor as he thrusts under him, comes down with a soft _wow_ , blinking up at Yuuri before he remembers himself, blushes, and strokes Yuuri off with renewed determination. Yuuri does not take long to come like that, already wound up tight and close to falling apart. Still, Yuuri thinks that he must look ugly, too, when he comes. And he hopes that Victor doesn’t mind watching him in turn, even when he doesn’t look attractive. 

They swap long kisses between each other, the room turning cold once the haze of sex wears off, sweat and come drying on their skin. Yuuri’s stomach starts to itch where the come splashed and dried, and Victor fishes around for his towel from earlier and wipes Yuuri clean, his touch slow and lazy and kind. Yuuri feels even more exposed like this than during sex, though. 

“Will you stay?” Victor asks, once they’re settled, turned on his side to face Yuuri. 

Yuuri doesn’t know how to respond, so he just nods stiffly. Victor sighs out, expression soft and open as he looks at Yuuri. 

Yuuri lies very still. Victor reaches out, rests his hand on Yuuri’s hip, and closes his eyes after a moment. Yuuri waits until he’s sure he’s asleep before he slinks out of bed, collects his clothes, and dashes back to his bedroom. 

He can’t meet Victor’s eyes the next morning at breakfast. 

 

-

 

It’s easy enough to dismiss his frustrations and uncertainties – since Victor doesn’t bring it up again, indeed focusing in on his promise to practice with Yuuri as soon as possible. And things get complicated, with Yuuri avoiding his eye most days, trying to act normal and knowing that he isn’t acting normal. Soon it’s easy enough to focus his attention on finding music for his free skate, and avoiding Victor more and more. 

Their talk on the beach, though – Yuuri knows that he breathes a little easier after that. It’s a strange thought – to be open with someone like this. To not stray away from touch when Victor breaks past him so easily. He makes it look easy. Yuuri wishes it could be as easy as that. 

He watches Victor sometimes, when Victor isn’t watching. In the hot springs, when Victor’s eyes are closed. When Victor is cobbling his way through a conversation with his parents – Victor’s Japanese far worse than his parents’ English, but not by much. When Victor is playing with Makkachin, walking him or throwing a stick for the dog to trot after happily. Yuuri watches him, quiet and careful – ready to snap his eyes away should there be any indication that Victor is going to look at him, too. 

They’re in the middle of practice now, and Yuuri’s mind is elsewhere. He’s botched one of his jumps. At Victor’s insistence, Yuuri is taking a short break to stretch out his leg at the boards, hand around his water bottle. He drinks in furtive little sips, frustrated but unable and unwilling to protest against Victor’s suggestions just yet. Victor is his coach now. He’s still getting used to the idea. He should really be more respectful towards him, shouldn’t he? 

“Are you ready to keep going?” Victor asks, and there’s a note of disbelief in his voice when he looks at Yuuri. 

Yuuri’s sweating and working hard, but he isn’t tired yet. He swallows down one more gulp of water before setting the bottle down with a nod of his head, turning to look at him expectantly. 

Victor laughs, disbelief clear on his face now, before he gestures his hand out towards the ice, gives Yuuri instructions for working on the Salchow. Yuuri glides out in small figure-eights before falling into a set, moving through some of the choreography for _Yuri on Ice_ but mostly focusing on the lead up to the Salchow. 

_Yuri on Ice_ is still in its early phases, still underdeveloped. He’s named the music, he’s announced his theme to Victor – _on my love_ , he thinks, again and again. Frowns at the words, frowns at what it might mean—

It’s strange, Yuuri thinks, watching Victor out of the corner of his eye – how easily Victor’s eyes train on him and don’t stray. He’d expected that something would have shifted drastically. Aside from Yuuri’s own inability to handle Victor on the best of days, Victor has only been professional when they’ve been training. Yuuri had half-expected Victor to try to distract him, or to at least goad him on with kisses and flirting. But in the end, it seems to Yuuri, Victor is a competitor and a coach – and he’s serious about making Yuuri win. 

Somehow, that makes Yuuri feel warmer than a kiss over the boards would have. 

Although, ever since he’s kissed Victor it seems that’s all he can think about. He thinks about it all the time – little passing moments of thoughts, of _I could kiss him right now and he’d probably let me._

But despite thinking about it all the time – at the breakfast table, after running to the ice rink, after lacing up his skates, in the onsen in the evening, passing by Victor’s door on his way to his own, ignoring the way Victor smiles after him, expression soft in the night’s light. All the time. 

Yuuri botches his first jump. And the next three times after that. 

 

-

 

It’s the end of the practice day and Yuuri’s outside the rink now packing up his things, inside the locker room changing into his heavier jacket. It’s still spring but there’s still a few cold snaps every few days, and Victor had goaded him into dressing up warmly. 

When Yuuri exits the locker room, searching out Victor, he hears the familiar scrape of blades on ice and follows that sound. He stops at the entrance between the observing room and the ice rink – suddenly shivering, and not just for the blast of cold air entering the ice rink. 

Victor is skating. He hasn’t noticed Yuuri yet, and he’s not skating anything concrete or specific, a conglomeration of different routines – but it arrests Yuuri all the same. He wanted to call out, to let Victor know he was there – and instead he just stares and watches.

Watches as Victor moves effortlessly across the ice, deceptively fluid when Yuuri knows how much time and practice would have gone into the vividness with which Victor moves with ease. Yuuri feels himself flush to think he can recognize each move into a new snippet of a routine, untethered and as out of context as a postcard – but still recognizable. 

Yuuri is breathless with watching Victor. 

Eventually, though, halfway through a spin, Victor spots him and dips out of the routine and glides over towards Yuuri, grinning. “Yuuri!” he calls, as if he hasn’t seen Yuuri in hours. “Are you ready to head out?”

Yuuri knows he should answer, but he’s too busy staring. Victor’s smile doesn’t wilt, but there’s the briefest question in his eyes as he slides to a halt at the opening between on and off the rink. He pats the boards with his hand, beckoning Yuuri closer.

Yuuri moves before he can stop himself, moving to stand in front of Victor. He’s still having a hard time processing words, it seems – and he’s a little embarrassed about it, but not enough to start stumbling through words.

“Hmm?” Victor prompts, eyes gentle. “Yuuri?” 

“It’s just – I’ve never seen you skate like that,” Yuuri says, hates that his voice sounds so small and so wobbly – not sure why he feels this way, having watched Victor scroll through a simple set of moves, a medley of past free skates sliding together from one to the next effortlessly. 

“Really?” Victor asks and seems genuinely curious – his eyes hint a smile as he leans in closer to Yuuri, tilting his head as he tilts his mouth up. “How was it different?” 

Yuuri can’t put it to words, isn’t sure why he flushes to have Victor so close like this – this is hardly the closest he’s had Victor, hardly the most intimate smile Victor has cast his way. And still he feels flustered, uncertain and on uneven footing. 

He can’t put to words, the strange welling of emotions that bubble up in Yuuri’s chest as he watches Victor skate – Victor gliding effortlessly, glancing over his shoulder to see Yuuri still watching him. He isn’t sure if he can put to words what was different between this throwaway practice and all the competitions he’s seen over the years. Or even something more comparable – this isn’t the first time he’s seen Victor skate in Hasetsu, either. But it’s different. 

Gentler. Satisfaction. Tinged not with a certain longing or routine, but something more natural. Understated, almost. 

No, none of those words work. Words are insufficient, and Yuuri grasps feebly at English words in an attempt to articulate something that flows so naturally between the two of them. 

“It was beautiful,” Yuuri tells him and knows it’s a painfully inadequate response.

Victor makes a wounded sound. “Is Yuuri implying that my skating wasn’t beautiful before?”

“No!” Yuuri gasps out and a moment later realizes that Victor is joking, because his smile is light and easy and the ugly overhanging fluorescent lights above touch his eyes and make them shine. In this moment, too, he looks beautiful and Yuuri doesn’t want to look away from him. 

“Ah, but you did just say I look beautiful now,” Victor chirps out, looking pleased, smile quirking upwards. “Are you flattering me?” 

“I said your skating was beautiful,” Yuuri protests, voice quiet as he feels the blush creeping up his neck and his cheeks. 

“So cruel, Yuuri,” Victor whines, but looks relatively pleased since he’s grinning, leaning in closer towards Yuuri, who leans away against the boards with a squeaky sound of protest. “You’re supposed to say that I’m always beautiful to you.”

Yuuri laughs – more a strangled sound than one of actual pleasure, lifting his hands to rest against Victor’s chest when Victor leans forward too far – to prevent the fool from just toppling forward off the ice. 

“Victor…” he protests. “Be serious.”

Victor’s smile is wicked and he hums, glancing down t Yuuri’s hands on his chest. Yuuri moves away, takes a step back, and retreats to find Victor’s skate guards for him. 

“We can head back now,” Victor hums out, stepping off the ice and resolutely into Yuuri’s space. 

Quite unprepared, Yuuri can only nod, looking away and feeling his ears turn pink.

 

-

 

It seems a simple matter, just moving into Victor’s space equally as confident as before – and yet Yuuri still fumbles. He still watches Victor, unsure how to react or what to say. 

Still, Victor doesn’t bring up their night together. If anything, Victor has calmed down with the overt flirtation and intensity since their talk on the beach. On one hand, Yuuri is grateful for that, but on another hand, he’s really unsure how to interpret Victor’s intensity one day and his calmness the other. But then, Yuuri isn’t sure how to interpret Victor in general, so there’s always that to keep in mind, too. 

Really, what Yuuri wants is to feel that certainty again – those little glimmers of confidence he felt when he was in Victor’s arms, when he was holding Victor down. Really, he can’t stop thinking about. Can’t stop thinking about Victor beneath him, the way his face twisted up, the way his breath went hitched. The way it felt to kiss him, to hold him down. 

Yuuri watches Victor most days, quiet and thoughtful. Victor smiles at him, warm and secured – but seems to be waiting. Yuuri’s grateful and ungrateful for this. Victor, simply waiting for Yuuri to meet him. But also Victor, making sure that Yuuri is the one to step forward – and Yuuri completely floundering on that call to intimacy. It isn’t that he doesn’t want it. It’s only that he’s overthinking it. He always does. He watches Victor most days and finds that Victor is watching him back, a slow, small, inviting smile twitching his mouth up. Yuuri, sometimes, can respond with a small, brief smile of his own. He hopes, at least, that he looks calm. He doesn’t feel calm, but it’s just as well. 

He finds himself thinking about Victor all the time. This isn’t in itself a strange occurrence – as he’s spent the better part of ten years thinking about Victor with an intensity that could make many people blush. But it’s in a different vein, in a vein he hadn’t allowed himself to think before, to covet – to want. To desire. 

_Oh,_ Yuuri thinks, distantly, as he watches Victor scratch Makkachin behind the ears, cooing at him in words that Yuuri doesn’t understand. _I’ve never felt this way before._

He puzzles over it – that strange line between his admiration for Victor over all these years versus this image of Victor he sees now – who is ridiculous and flighty, forgetful and absurd, who babbles to his dog and tries to chat with Yuuri’s family despite only knowing simple phrases in Japanese. Who says good morning to all the locals they pass on their way to the ice rink or when leading Yuuri on his run riding his bike. Who watches the ocean and the birds flying in the breezes with both longing and belonging, who tilts his head so the sun catches his eyes and his hair as he smiles gently at Yuuri. Who looks at Yuuri like he is worth something and not, simply, worthless. 

He doesn’t know what to call it. He’s never been one to put words to things, but not understanding an aspect of Victor is unsettling – when he is so close, when he is right there and might not always be there. He feels, quite suddenly, lost. 

 

-

 

“Yuuri,” Victor sighs, elongating Yuuri’s name not in the flirty way he tends to but rather in a resigned sigh. “Why don’t you take a break?” 

It’s been a few hours now and Yuuri’s mind is clearly elsewhere, puzzling over too many things to pinpoint specifically, but all signs inching towards Victor. How Yuuri feels about Victor. 

_What do you want me to be to you?_ Victor had asked him, and Yuuri had told him to be just himself – but it’s not as simple as that. He knows Victor is his coach. Victor is also his idol. Spending the last few weeks with him since the Onsen on Ice has made it pretty clear that Victor is not much of the God-like entity he’d known – but still pretty firmly a genius, unfailing in his strengths and his surprises. But a friend? Or a—

Well, Yuuri has never been good with words. 

It’s even worse in English, where the words are not his own, only borrowed. When he speaks to Victor and can see the moment when he understands and then the longer moment before he comprehends, reformulating the words, translating places, before turning the answer in English. Then waits as Yuuri thinks of his answer. Sometimes their conversations are slow, words stuck between them. Some days, the words come easily, understood like second nature – but never inherently, intrinsically understood as when Yuuri fires off a rapid response to his family’s words. 

Even worse, Yuuri does not know how to put abstractions to words. He and Victor can communicate through skating terminology easily. You’ve over-rotated on that last jump. Watch your free leg. Remember to greet your audience when you’re finished. Don’t push too hard. Cool-down. Warm-up. So on and so on – all words he knows, all words he understands. 

But the twist in Yuuri’s gut when Victor laughs, soft and tilting, looking at Yuuri like he’s everything? He can’t express that to Victor. Or the feeling of certainty or happiness at landing a jump correctly, tilting his head, and seeing Yuuri’s delight mirrored back at him through Victor? He can’t express that, either. 

Sometimes, it’s so difficult to understand Victor. How desperately Yuuri wants to. How desperately he wants Victor to understand him – but to understand him without Yuuri having to actually say the words that stick in his throat, unspoken and unexpressed. 

Victor suggests the rest, Yuuri knows, because Yuuri has been flubbing all his jumps today – even simple singles and doubles. Yuuri doesn’t bother to hide his frustration, ready to ignore Victor and keep insisting – to push off the boards and keep skating, keep gliding along the ice until he can get it right.

But Victor shakes his head, catching something in Yuuri’s expression. “It’ll do no good if you get injured over something so simple, right?”

He says it kindly, but it still makes Yuuri flinch – an understated anger pooling in his gut, frustrated at himself and snatching his water bottle off of the barrier and swallowing a thick mouthful, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. 

“Fine,” he grits out, and can’t remember the last time he actually sounded so frustrated and angry. Victor’s surprise is faint on his face, but Yuuri can see it. Yuuri also can’t blame him for the surprise at Yuuri’s tone.

Yuuri grabs his skate guards, slams them on – nearly slicing his hand in the process – and then stumbles his way off the ice, head bowed and shoulders hunched. He moves out of the rink and into the waiting area, dropping down into a crouch so he can start stretching himself out, cooling down. He swigs another gulp of water and waits for Victor to wander in and lecture him on proper skating technique. 

He knows why he can’t manage the jumps, or the rest of the choreography at all. His mind is elsewhere, turmoiling with thoughts he can’t express. All around Victor. Of course it always comes back to Victor. 

Yuuri takes a few, struggling breaths and finishes stretching, untying his laces and slipping off his skates. He keeps his head down, his frustration ebbing away to shame soon enough. He shouldn’t be allowing himself to get so distracted. Shouldn’t allow himself to be so flighty in this way.

 _What do you want me to be to you?_ Victor had asked him. Had smiled at Yuuri’s answer, clasped his hand, the Hasetsu ocean sparkling behind them. 

_That’ll be my way of showing my love,_ Victor had said, and Yuuri hadn’t known what to say to that, either. His heart hammers at the thought and he sets his skates into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

Victor still hasn’t appeared to scold him, so Yuuri heaves a sigh and goes to face his doom. It’ll be better to get it over with, anyway.

But Victor isn’t waiting, arms crossed and death smile in place. Instead, Victor is gliding around the rink absently, just as before. Slow slides of techniques slipping away. He doesn’t try any jumps, just moves his way through some step sequences. 

Yuuri sighs and sets his bag down, moves to the boards and leans his elbows on it, watching Victor as he skates with no small amount of yearning. He knows that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be as beautiful on the ice as Victor is. It makes his heart hurt to watch him, so beautiful and flawless out there. How easy he makes it look when he knows that Victor worked himself to the bone to achieve this, to supplement his inherent gifts – and Yuuri knows he’ll never be able to reach that. 

Victor eventually spots him and hesitates, watching Yuuri’s expression carefully. Yuuri doesn’t know what he looks like, but does breathe a small sigh when Victor eventually makes his way towards him, his smile gentle and open as he watches Yuuri. 

“Rested?” Victor asks as he reaches out a hand to catch himself against the boards. His momentum sends him forward, head bobbing almost into Yuuri’s space.

Before Yuuri can second-guess it, he leans up and catches Victor’s mouth with his, before he can sway away from the boards again. It isn’t a great kiss, off-center and a little too forceful in its entry, but Yuuri shivers when Victor makes a soft murmur of delight and kisses him back, gentle and sweet. His hand touches Yuuri’s cheek and holds there, chilled from the cold air in Ice Castle.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes when Yuuri pulls back, and his smile turns a little lopsided – almost dopey. “What was that for?” 

Yuuri doesn’t have a satisfactory answer – only knows that his heart feels settled, being this close to Victor, being able to kiss him. 

“I just wanted to,” he says, and then blushes a little at the boldness of such a statement. Victor looks delighted, though. 

 

-

 

Kissing Victor is always nice. Yuuri really can’t get enough of it – has wondered, not for the first time, just how he went so long without kissing Victor on a daily basis. It’s strange, that he should find such comfort in it when the first few times he kisses Victor, he didn’t know what to do with his hands, wasn’t confident with the way his mouth moved, the brush of his breath. 

It’s exceptionally reassuring and does things for his confidence when every time he pulls away from a long kiss, Victor looks vaguely dazed, smiling stupidly at Yuuri. 

Yuuri finds that he really likes that reaction. 

 

-

 

A few days later, Yuuri is still not doing much better with his choreography and jumps. He’s getting more and more frustrated, and while Victor doesn’t seem to be angry with him, Yuuri knows that he must be disappointed in his student’s lack of true progression with the material. 

Yuuri skids to a stop and gives Victor a mournful expression. 

“Okay, Yuuri,” Victor says, voice soft – seeking to reassure, to calm, to keep Yuuri from getting skittish and moving away from him. It’s strange that Yuuri can already begin to understand and process Victor’s different ways of saying his name, of processing Yuuri’s own moods and expressions. Victor continues, “Why don’t we try something different?” 

“Like what?” Yuuri asks, miserable and unsure. He toes his foot against the ice, little flakes skirting off of it and settling on the lip of his skate’s toe box. 

“Why not take a break from your free skate and try the short program again? We’re still working out the kinks in your free. So,” Victor trails off with a little shrug. “You’re more set in your choreography for the short.” 

Yuuri chews on his inner cheek and sighs. “Right, okay.”

“Nuh uh,” Victor tsks, and even wags his finger at Yuuri. Yuuri’s expression must look unimpressed because Victor just looks pleased, lips quirking up. “Confidence, Yuuri. After all, _Eros_ is about seduction.”

Yuuri sighs, almost says, _Right, okay,_ again before he catches himself. More firmly, voice dropping a little even if it’s just artifice, he says, “Yes.” 

Victor’s smile grows. “That’s better.” Then he pauses and adds, voice softer, “Skate like you’re seducing _me_.” 

Yuuri grips the top of the boards and glances up at Victor, blushing despite himself. Victor looks at him calmly but – yes, up this close, Yuuri can see the longing. Victor drums his fingers on the boards close to Yuuri’s hands. A slow, melodic tapping. A metronome. 

Voice hushed, Yuuri says, “Yes.” 

Victor’s smile grows, quiet and expectant. “Go on, then.”

He turns from Yuuri, but only so he can summon up the music on his phone, to blast it over the ice as Yuuri skates his way towards the center. It isn’t the same, not without the dimming of the lights, the loud-speakers pushing out the guitar’s strums, or wearing his costume. But if he can seduce Victor wearing his sweaty t-shirt and his sweatpants, already tired from the long day, he can do anything. 

He takes a moment, summoning up the image of a katsudon. And then gives a small nod in Victor’s direction, eyes still closed. Once the music starts to play, Yuuri moves. He still doesn’t have the jumps down, but he doesn’t worry about that – focuses instead on the movement of his arms, the sway of his hips, the slide of his feet across the ice as he _dances_ , slow and sultry and inviting – seductive, he hopes. Seducing Victor. He doesn’t cast his eyes in Victor’s direction after the customary head tilt and smile, the flow of his body moving through the routine. He still botches one of the jumps, but he doesn’t stop, moves through with the music even as the tinny sound fades away from Victor’s phone as Yuuri glides further down the ice, only hearing the scrape of his skates on the ice – but knowing what to do, remembering this. 

Seduce Victor. He can do that. Surely he can do that. 

He pictures a katsudon at first, then as the guitars strum louder, he thinks of the way Victor looked beneath him – hands curled, eyes blown wide. The way he felt in Yuuri’s hand, the way he could squeeze around his cock and hear the hitch of his breath against his ear. Yuuri’s lips against Victor’s neck. The shudder and gasp of Victor’s breath as he comes. The way he stared at Yuuri afterwards, that soft, reverent _wow_. He thinks—

And he moves. Becomes the music. 

All too soon, the routine is over, and Yuuri is panting, sweat clinging to his brow. He holds his final pose for half a moment before he drops his arms, turns a little, and seeks out Victor over at the boards.

Victor stares at him. Even from this distance, Yuuri can tell he’s staring. Even from this distance, Yuuri can feel the hunger. 

He skates his way back over towards him, never taking his eyes off Victor. Victor doesn’t say anything once Yuuri is there, but Yuuri says nothing, too. They look at each other for a long moment, Yuuri trying not to just gulp in sucking heaps of breath, his heart hammering and not just from exertion. They’re quiet for a moment. Then—

Yuuri closes his eyes and breathes out, pictures first katsudon, then pictures himself moving like a woman, swaying hips and tempting the playboy. He breathes out. Breathes in again and thinks of the way Victor looks sprawled out beneath him, or straddling his hips and rocking his body down against him, the scrape of his nails biting into Yuuri’s shoulders, or the way his hair falls in his eyes. How he looks like that just for Yuuri – only Yuuri. How he looks at Yuuri, the fire in Yuuri’s eyes mirrored in Victor’s own. Thinks about how desperately, fully he wants that – as much as he can have that. 

When he opens his eyes again, he looks calmly at Victor – and hears the way Victor’s breath hitches. 

“Well?” Yuuri asks, breathless. “Did I seduce you?” 

“Yes,” Victor answers, without hesitation. Yuuri sees the way he grips the boards. 

It’s a bit like watching himself from outside his body, aware of the things he’s doing and the things he’s saying, but strangely disconnected from the feelings to it. He should be mortified, he should be embarrassed. Instead, he watches himself summon up a confidence he doesn’t feel, has no idea where it’s come from:

“Then you know what to do.” 

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers, hushed. 

“Take me to bed,” he tells him and Victor does not need to be told twice. 

 

-

 

Somehow they manage to get their way back to the inn. It’s way farther than Yuuri would like, each step taking more and more energy and Yuuri more and more anxious for what he’s just demanded of Victor. But they get there, and Victor practically throws Yuuri into his room.

Once the door slides shut behind them, Yuuri reaches for Victor – and Victor cups his cheeks and kisses him – long and slow and needy. Yuuri makes a soft whining sound before he can second-guess it, sinks himself against Victor and kisses him back. 

It is fast and messy and not unlike the first time – Victor’s hands on him, Yuuri pressing down against him. A mess of hands, touching at each other – coming between kisses. Victor, breathless and panting, gasping out Yuuri’s name like a prayer. Yuuri, unsure where the confidence has come from but willing to follow it, even if Victor’s come makes his skin itchy if he doesn’t wipe it down right away. 

Yuuri, picturing himself as a katsudon, as the most beautiful woman in town, thinking to himself again and again – _Somehow, somehow he wants me. So I’ll—_

And bending down to meet Victor, brushing his hands over him – mouth against his, then moving down over his chest, his stomach, his cock. Fumbling his way through that but willing to learn, fueled on by Victor’s breathless encouragements, fingers twisting in his hair. Sated, afterwards, the taste of Victor on his tongue. 

Victor sighs out, resting and lounging in the bed as Yuuri goes to the bathroom to grab some towels to clean them both off.

Yuuri catches sight of himself in the mirror and flushes. He is thoroughly disheveled, his hair a wreck, his cheeks flushed, his eyes dark. If this is the way he looks _after_ Victor has touched him, he wonders what he looks like in the moment Victor touches him. When he is curving up over him, Victor’s hands touching every inch of him, Victor’s hands in his hair, tugging Yuuri down until Yuuri drags his mouth over his. What does he look like in that moment? 

It’s a strange thought to think that he wants to know, wants to see himself in the moment when he stretches his body out over Victor and presses down against him. Wants to see what Victor sees – what makes Victor look at him like he is everything.

He returns to Victor’s bedroom, sinking down on the side of the bed and reaching out to brush the hair from Victor’s face. 

“You like doing that,” Victor mumbles, voice quiet and sleepy. He smiles at Yuuri as Yuuri blushes, and hums out his gratitude when Yuuri starts brushing the towel over his stomach, clearing away his and Yuuri’s come. 

“Doing what?” Yuuri asks, although he knows the answer, just seeking some sort of conversation so he doesn’t have to think about Victor sprawled out over his bed naked and flushed because of what Yuuri’s done to him. 

“Touching my hair,” Victor sighs out, arching a little as Yuuri swirls the soft towel around his belly button and across his hips, cleaning him. 

“Oh,” Yuuri says, blushing. “Sorry.”

“No,” Victor dismisses. His face lights up in a small smile. “I like it. It feels nice.” 

Yuuri pauses a moment, and then lifts his hand again – brushing his fingers through Victor’s hair, and delighting in Victor’s pleased sigh. He turns his head towards Yuuri, curls into him. 

“Yuuri,” he whispers in a distinct whine, reaching for Yuuri until Yuuri lies down beside him, tucked up into the circle of his arms. Victor presses a few sloppy kisses against Yuuri’s shoulder, then his neck. “Mmm,” he hums, nuzzling, his nose pressing against the line of Yuuri’s jaw, his ear. “You’re so warm.” 

Yuuri blushes more and inevitably feels even warmer because of it. Victor cuddles up to him, takes the towels from Yuuri’s hands and lets them fall to the floor, then settles his hands at Yuuri’s back, sliding slowly. 

Yuuri sighs out and kisses the underside of Victor’s chin. Then asks, “Do you want to go again?” 

Victor makes a soft sound of delighted surprise, and then laughs out. “Ah – Yuuri… your stamina is… something else.”

Yuuri almost feels embarrassed but only shrugs and wriggles his hips forward, their bodies slotting together. He kisses Victor’s jaw, then the corner of his mouth. Victor huffs out a pleased sigh and turns his head, catching Yuuri’s mouth and kissing him slow and lingering. Yuuri presses against him. 

They kiss for a long moment and eventually Victor shifts, pulling Yuuri on top of him and then sitting up so Yuuri is straddling his lap. Victor’s still soft between them, but Yuuri knows it won’t be long before Victor stirs again. He himself is already growing hard, arms draped over Victor’s shoulders and swapping lazy kisses. They have time, Yuuri thinks – at least, they have the rest of the night. Tomorrow is Yuuri’s scheduled rest day so that his muscles can recuperate to prevent injury. 

The last guitar strings of _Eros_ still linger in his bloodstream, it seems. He swivels his hips forward just to hear Victor gasp and press up against him, hands scrambling to get a proper hold of Yuuri. Yuuri almost laughs, but instead just shivers, gasping between biting kisses, Victor’s teeth dragging against his bottom lip. 

Once they part again, Victor is already breathless. 

“Yuuri?” Victor asks. 

“Yes?” Yuuri answers, and then drapes himself over Victor in order to kiss him again, thus silencing Victor from his question. Victor does not seem to mind – kissing Yuuri again, letting Yuuri bite at his lip, lick into his mouth, fingers twisting up into his hair at the nape of his neck and holding on tight. 

They part again and Yuuri lingers close, Victor’s breath ghosting over his mouth. It’d be easy to lean in and just keep kissing him. 

Victor smoothes his hands over Yuuri’s back, fingertips tracing his spine, the dimples in his lower back. “I want to,” Victor tells him, his mouth brushing Yuuri’s, then their noses. “I just don’t want to fall asleep. You’ve tired me out.”

Yuuri smiles a little, almost laughs. 

“Oh,” he says, his voice hushed and hitching just from that admission. 

Victor kisses him again, seems incapable of letting that smile go without kissing him. Yuuri really doesn’t mind. 

“Mm,” Yuuri hums quietly, fingertips tracing through his hair, down his neck, over his shoulders – just touching him idly, thrilling in the way even a simple touch can make Victor’s breath hitch, his body arch, his cock stir against his. He tells him, “You’ll have to stay awake. I won’t accept you getting bored.” He doesn’t pause, doesn’t let himself feel embarrassed by the command. He presses himself to Victor. “Talk to me.” 

Victor actually looks flushed, seems eager to answer him: “About what?”

“Anything.” Yuuri shrugs, unable to think of a particular topic. 

“You’re beautiful,” Victor breathes, utterly gentle and utterly absurd, looking up at Yuuri straddling him with nothing short of wonder. 

Yuuri flushes and shakes his head. “Not that!” 

Victor chuckles and Yuuri flushes more. Victor’s expression is warm – fond in a way that he’s not used to saying, unsure how to react to. It’s nice – makes Yuuri feel warm inside – but he doesn’t know how to handle it, how to return it. 

But Victor breathes out, looking thoughtful – searching for a topic. Finally, he settles on, “You know, the flip wasn’t always my favorite jump?”

Yuuri frowns, playing with Victor’s hair and then ducking his head, kissing slowly along Victor’s jaw with a thoughtful hum, coaxing him on to continue. He sucks his mouth against the slope of Victor’s neck, wonders idly if he’ll leave a mark, and delights in the way Victor’s breath shifts, goes quiet for a moment. 

“What was, then?” Yuuri asks, his teeth dragging down his neck, his hands gripping Victor’s shoulders now, holding tight to him. 

“You can’t guess?” Victor asks, voice breathless and with a distinct whine, his body turning more towards Yuuri, demanding Yuuri’s attentions and touch. 

Yuuri hums, and thinks about it – runs Victor’s years of routines through his mind as he sucks at the dip of Victor’s throat, then his adam’s apple, content with kissing and licking down his neck, searching for more of Victor’s moans, his loss of breath. He’s rewarded several times with these sounds, and it only goads him onwards. 

Yuuri thinks about Victor’s past routines – the jumps and the spins from his early days of skating in seniors, remembers that it took several seasons before the quad flip even appeared, before it even became Victor’s signature move. 

Finally, Yuuri asks between nibbles over Victor’s shoulder, shifting his hips when he feels Victor’s cock plump up between them. “The triple axel?” 

“Yes!” Victor laughs out, sounding surprised but pleased – or horny and pleased, Yuuri isn’t sure. There’s a pink mark on Victor’s neck and Yuuri can’t help but stare at it, satisfied, as he cushions his cheek against Victor’s shoulder, glancing between his marked neck and Victor’s laughing blue eyes as he looks at Yuuri. 

“Why?” Yuuri coaxes, trails his fingers down Victor’s chest. 

“Mmm,” Victor hums, chest swelling with his breath as he arches a little, his own hands playing at Yuuri’s hips, sweeping up to trace along his ribs. It tickles a little, but not enough to make Yuuri laugh, just squirm a little in Victor’s lap. Victor is reasonably distracted by this and Yuuri smiles against his neck, nuzzling. 

“Victor?”Yuuri coaxes. “You said you didn’t want to fall asleep. So talk to me.”

He sounds so demanding – and yet Yuuri doesn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed, delighting in the way Victor’s adam’s apple bobs, the flush on his neck and chest. 

“Back when I was first starting out, the triple axel wasn’t as popular – not as many people added it to their routines,” Victor finally manages to say. “But then everyone started being able to do it, and… it felt a little boring. So it stopped being my favorite. I liked the triple flip, so I thought – why not try to make it a quad? I hadn’t seen anyone else do it, really.” 

In fact, Victor had been the first person to land the quad flip in competition successfully. Yuuri remembers that routine very well – a light and peppery routine when Victor was twenty, spinning out the quad flip at the Russian Nationals. 

“I remember,” Yuuri tells him, and Victor shivers against him. 

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” Victor laughs, and sounds delighted. 

Yuuri lifts his head, looking at Victor. Victor smiles at him, flushed and looking rather wrecked – but also happy, his eyes soft as he looks at Yuuri. 

Yuuri cups his face and pulls him in, kissing him – demanding. Victor moans out happily and kisses him back, messy and sloppy and grasping at Yuuri, his fingernails dragging over his skin. Yuuri gasps out, sinks against him and kisses him more, deeper, more demanding – needing him, needing him so much and—

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers against his mouth, his hands falling down Yuuri’s back, cupping his ass and dragging him in to grind against him. Yuuri squeaks out in surprise and then moves, his hips swaying against his, moving like _Eros_ demands, tries to grasp at that feeling of confidence, moans out helplessly when their cocks slide together. 

Victor laughs a little into the kiss, his mouth mushy and turning upward as he looks at Yuuri, moving to pepper his face with kisses – across his nose, his mouth, his chin and his cheekbones. Yuuri can’t help but laugh, helplessly, feeling strangely childlike in that moment, despite his state of nakedness. 

“Look at us,” Victor laughs, his hands all over Yuuri, Yuuri’s face pressed with kisses and making his cheeks red. “Talking about skating when you’re like this over me.” He laughs again, delighted, looking up at Yuuri like Yuuri can do no wrong, like Yuuri has done everything. “You don’t think it’s silly?” 

Yuuri thinks that Victor is exceptionally silly – but he likes that. Likes seeing it. In all his years of idol-worship, Victor always seemed this unreachable, professional man – far away and perfect, mild-mannered and behaving when the cameras were flashing, evolving into different characters when his routines demanded the emotions. 

Like this, he sees a Victor who is silly, who is ridiculous and absurd and strange. He likes that Victor. He likes that he’s the one to see it. The only one to see him like this. 

Instead of saying all that, Yuuri says, “I’m the one who has to picture katsudon for a routine… so I might not be a good judge on silly.”

Victor chuckles, but it’s a different sound than before. He shakes his head, looking up at Yuuri gently. 

“It suits you,” Victor says. 

“Yeah?” Yuuri asks, petting his fingers through Victor’s hair now, brushing it away from his face so he can see both his eyes, his fingertips skimming over his face. 

“I love katsudon,” Victor says, just like he did the day of Onsen on Ice – that strange weight to those words, looking at Yuuri.

Yuuri traces his fingertips over Victor’s mouth and Victor’s eyes soften, kissing his fingertips, then cupping his hand over Yuuri’s, guiding it down between them so Yuuri’s hand skims across their cocks. Yuuri wraps his hand around Victor’s, strokes it in favor of his own, twists his hand over the cockhead just to see the way Victor’s eyelashes flutter. 

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispers, unsure what else to say. He kisses Victor again, light and fleeting – then mimics Victor from before, kissing over his face. First his nose, his smiling mouth again, his jaw, his ear. He squeezes around his cock just to get Victor to gasp and duck his head forward so Yuuri can kiss the crown of his head. 

He focuses on touching Victor, squeezing and stroking over his cock, his free hand running over every inch of Victor, rocking his own hips forward against him. Victor makes soft noises – strange gasps of surprise, low moans, a whine that might be Yuuri’s name. When he reaches to touch Yuuri, Yuuri shakes his head, grasping his hand and lifting it, kissing his palm and then each fingertip. 

“Let me,” Yuuri tells him, and it isn’t a request. Again, distantly, he isn’t sure where this confidence has come from, but he follows after it, drowning in its tailspin and grasping at the wisps of arousal ignited at the start of this _Eros_ routine. Victor, as always, obeys him – gasps into Yuuri’s mouth as he kisses him. Then Yuuri reminds him, “Talk to me.”

And Victor does – absent words about skating. His routines over the years, his favorite costumes, descriptions of ice rinks he’s visited, and whatever else comes to mind. He almost starts talking about other skaters but Yuuri squeezes his cock hard and it distracts Victor enough that he talks about other things when he remembers himself, once he’s not distracted rocking hard into Yuuri’s clenched hand. 

“Yuuri,” Victor gasps out. “I want—”

His hands reach out, blindly, trying to touch at Yuuri. 

“I want it to be good for you,” Victor says, but his voice is reedy – sounds desperate in a way that isn’t linked to just arousal. “I want…” Victor says again, floundering for his words. “I want it to be worth it to you.” 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Yuuri asks in wonder. 

“I know you don’t have a lot of experience with this,” Victor admits, rocking into Yuuri’s hand still, absently – likely unaware he’s even doing it. “I want… I just don’t want you to be disappointed with – everything.” 

Yuuri frowns, tilting his head – not understanding. He tries to process the English, its choppy use, the strange tenor to Victor’s words. Not for the first time, Yuuri wishes that English could yield its nuances better to them, that he could grasp at what Victor isn’t quite saying.

“Ah,” Victor laughs, uncertain, seeing Yuuri’s expression. “How to put it… That is, I know you’ve looked up to me and—”

Yuuri’s hand stills on Victor’s cock and he must look somewhat startled, eyes wide as he stares at him and then blushes, ducking his head.

“No, don’t get embarrassed,” Victor protests, touching at him, fingers at his ribs. “I mean… It’s been a while since our first night, like this. I’d hate to disappoint, after so much build-up.” 

Yuuri frowns at him. 

Victor smiles, but it’s almost startling sunny – not the same, warm smile before. Yuuri’s brow furrows. 

It’s a strange thing, to hear something like an insecurity coming from Victor, who he’s idolized for so long – whom he’s viewed as something of a God, someone perfect and impenetrable. But that isn’t who Victor is, not really. Yuuri is still getting to know Victor, but every day is—

Yuuri bites his lip, looks at Victor again. Victor looks at him back, eyes soft but a little hesitant. 

And like that, something clicks into place for Yuuri. Yuuri has never been good with words, never been good with expressing himself or understanding what’s always seemed abstract or distant to him. But Victor looking at Yuuri like this – quiet and hopeful and naked and pressed to him, Yuuri thinks he understands. 

He cups Victor’s cheeks, thumbs brushing across his cheekbones. Says, “Victor.” 

“Mm,” Victor prompts, when Yuuri doesn’t immediately speak. 

Yuuri shakes his head, his body humming with need, with arousal, feeling weightless and boneless, mush in Victor’s lap. Victor loops his arms around Yuuri’s waist, keeping him close. 

“I… idolized you for so long,” Yuuri tells him, and this is somehow more embarrassing than anything they’ve just done in bed, Yuuri’s cheeks turning pink. “You were – always perfect to me, it seems. But I… I don’t mind this. I don’t mind—”

Victor is giving him a look – one that Yuuri can’t quite place. He flounders a little, suddenly shy – suddenly uncertain. 

“So you aren’t perfect,” Yuuri rushes to say, doesn’t look at Victor too closely, afraid to lose his nerve. But his body is weightless – he understands what he’s been agonizing over, he understands the words he hasn’t been able to grasp at, to pin down. “But I… I don’t mind that.” 

He swallows down, hands scrambling to move over Victor’s body. 

“I like the you I’m getting to know,” Yuuri tells him, fingers tangling up in Victor’s hair, pushing it back from his face. “Everything.” 

Victor laughs again, softer this time – more genuine. His smile softens, too, and Yuuri knows that he’s said the right thing. But it is somehow, resolutely, not enough. It is not satisfying in the least to have said this and then to be done with it. He knows it isn’t enough. 

“Not… Not just like,” Yuuri continues. His heart is hammering in his chest but he pushes past the fear that’s seizing at his throat, trying to lock it down. 

_That’s my way of showing my love,_ Victor had told him on the beach and—

“I—” Yuuri pauses, bites his lip and smoothes his thumb over Victor’s jaw, across his bottom lip. Victor’s mouth parts, his chin tipping back as he looks at Yuuri – studying his face at the strange, stilted pause. Yuuri swallows, then says, “I… it isn’t… I like – but I also—”

The words fumble out of him. Yuuri flushes, embarrassed and frustrated at his own ineptitude. But Victor’s lips close a little, purse, press to Yuuri’s thumb – and that stills Yuuri enough that he abandons the words before they can form. 

Yuuri watches him, his heart beating too fast, his body shaking a little. _Please understand,_ he thinks, staring at Victor. _Please understand what I’m saying—_

And never in his life is he going to forget the way Victor’s expression blooms wide, the way his mouth splits into a massive grin as _yes_ , he understands. Comprehends the words left unspoken, but undoubtedly felt. Yuuri is definitely not breathing. 

“Oh, Yuuri!” Victor gasps out, and then flings himself at Yuuri. They nearly go toppling off the bed for their troubles and Yuuri definitely yelps a little in surprise, just grateful that nothing important gets hit as he sprawls out on his back, Victor clinging to him in a massive hug, his face pressed into Yuuri’s neck, kissing at it sloppily before he lifts himself up properly and kisses Yuuri hard. 

Yuuri grasps at him, desperately, and kisses him back – clings to him as if afraid to let go, his entire body thrumming with love. _Love._

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says again when they part, softer this time, hair falling from behind his ears and framing his face. Yuuri stares up at him, memorizing the expression – hopes he never forgets the way Victor looks at him in this moment. 

Yuuri licks his lips, his heart beating so hard against his chest, his throat closing up with an excess of emotion. He lifts his hand and touches Victor’s cheek, bites back a smile when Victor closes his eyes and leans into the touch, his smile wide across his face. 

As far as confessions go, Yuuri thinks, this must certainly be a fumble. But—

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers, his thumb against Victor’s cheek bone only for Victor to turn his head and kiss Yuuri’s palm. Yuuri’s fingers curl, his stomach twisting up. “Victor,” he says again, waits until Victor opens his eyes to look at him. Yuuri licks his lips and whispers, “Let… let me. Let me show you my love.” 

Victor is already nodding, is already letting Yuuri reach for him, pull him down and roll them over. Yuuri leans into him, breathes out. Victor moves beneath him, lets Yuuri take control, his staring at him with wide eyes, soft and desperate and full of desire and need for _him_. Somehow, Victor wants him. 

He is power. He is love. He is—

He bows his head, presses his forehead to Victor and closes his eyes, breathing out shakily. Victor leans up to meet him, and he feels the rush of Victor’s breath on his mouth. 

Yuuri drags his hands over him, cups his hand around his cock again and strokes him off. He wants more, wants to do so much more – but he’s overwhelmed with need, rushed, wants to feel Victor all over him and all around him, wants to keep him here forever, wants to bind Victor to him so he can never leave. Wants so much, and can never have enough. He is power. He is love. 

“Oh,” Victor says when he comes unexpectedly, the only warning the stuttered, frenzied movements of his hips as he rocks up into Yuuri’s hand. He ducks his head against Yuuri’s shoulder, rocking up mercilessly. Yuuri moans, nibbles at Victor’s ear and strokes him through it, thrilling in the feeling as he always does, that splash of warmth across his fisted hand, his stomach, his hips. Victor is messy, gets everywhere like this – and Yuuri loves that, delights in that. He shivers a little as Victor huffs out and moans against his shoulder. 

Once Victor does come down, though, he draws away only to cover his face with both hands. He moans out. 

“Yuuri,” he says, his voice laced with a definite whine. Victor’s ears are pink, Yuuri realizes absently – and finds it far more endearing than anything else. It isn’t the first time that Victor has come before Yuuri. But Yuuri just chalks that up to his stamina in general, his focus on Victor rather than himself. 

“Was it good?” Yuuri asks, gentle but demanding. 

“I don’t… I wanted to last longer than that,” Victor admits as he drops his hands away, drops them down onto Yuuri’s waist. He’s breathless still, flushed and some sweat making his hair cling to his temples. “I want it to be good for you, Yuuri.” 

Yuuri regards him calmly. He slowly draws his hand away from Victor’s cock, stroking his fingertips over Victor’s stomach to clean him off. He looks at his hand, glistening with Victor’s come and he smiles a little. 

He licks his hand and then drops it down to touch himself, lifting up onto his knees to look at Victor. Victor definitely stops breathing for a moment, eyes wide. Yuuri locks his eyes with him, and starts stroking himself. 

“Keep your eyes on me?” Yuuri asks him. 

“Always,” Victor breathes, no hesitation. 

Yuuri smiles – kinder this time, rocks his hips forward into his waiting hand. 

“Victor,” Yuuri says, “Do you want me?” 

Victor looks breathless still, the evening light from the window haloing around his hair as he stares at Yuuri straddling him, above him like this, his free hand on his shoulder, thumb stroking over a mark he’s left there, pink and his. 

“More than anything,” Victor tells him and Yuuri feels weightless, stroking himself only two more times before he comes, tilting his head back and gasping out, eyes closed. 

“Then that’s all I need,” Yuuri says, once he can find his breath again. 

“Still,” Victor protests, his hand touching Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri sighs out and leans against his touch, even though he’s starting to feel itchy again and wishes the towels were in easy reaching distance. Victor continues, “I want to show you my love, too, Yuuri.” 

Yuuri gasps softly, his stomach and his heart and his body twisting up with both relief and desire – needing so much more, needing to be closer, to have him. Needing – needing so much. 

“You do,” Yuuri tells him, his body feeling quivery and strange at this admission – at the softness of Victor’s voice, the hesitancy that lingers there for only half a moment. He lifts his hips up, looks down at Victor and says, “Touch me.” 

And Victor nearly heaves himself off the bed in his rush to reach for Yuuri, to touch him. It’s too late for him to stroke him off, but he pulls Yuuri into his arms, presses to him, kisses him all over again and Yuuri melts against him, sighs out and sinks to him. 

“Stay here this time,” Victor tells him, his arms tight around him. Yuuri nods, tilts his chin up so that Victor will kiss him properly. 

He thinks, he’ll spend as much time as he has remaining with Victor showing him his love – he’ll make sure, no matter what, that Victor can know it. 

 

-

 

The next time Yuuri and Victor are at the rink after practice and Yuuri catches sight of Victor looping around the rink, Yuuri doesn’t hesitate before stepping out onto the ice and skating out beside him, following him through the looping.

“Oh!” Victor says in surprise and then grins. “Yuuri – you want to join me?” 

“Sure,” Yuuri tells him, even if his presence here isn’t obvious enough as it is. 

Victor smiles and holds out his hand towards Yuuri. 

Yuuri reaches out and takes it, threading their fingers together – and together they loop around the rink.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found [on my tumblr.](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/)


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